Maintaining healthy joints is a crucial part of living an active and healthy lifestyle at any age. If you experience acute or chronic pain in your joints, it can make it harder to do the things you enjoy.
Whether you regularly experience joint pain due to a condition such as arthritis or are hoping to maintain your current joint health, you can benefit from an exercise routine that promotes joint health. Board-certified, interventional pain management specialist Hasan Badday, MD, of Pacific Pain & Regenerative Medicine in Irvine and Los Angeles, California, shares five kinds of exercises you should do regularly to keep your joints strong and healthy.
The importance of keeping your joints healthy
Your joints are the parts of your body that connect your ligaments, muscles, and tissues. Healthy joints allow you to more easily do many physical activities, such as jumping, twisting and turning, running, and any general movement.
When joints wear down, it not only makes it harder to be active, you’re also at higher risk of developing conditions like arthritis and needing premature joint replacement surgeries. In maintaining or regaining joint health by keeping your body strong, you can stay active and physically engaged at any age.
5 kinds of exercise that are good for your joints
The best way to keep your joints healthy is by regularly engaging in a low impact, cross-training routine that targets your strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular health. Before starting a new fitness routine, make an appointment with Dr. Badday to evaluate your joint and overall health and receive personalized exercise recommendations.
1. Gentle stretching
You should always perform gentle stretches that target your full body before and after you start any physical activity. Gentle stretching not only improves your overall fitness levels, it also relieves any stiffness and pain in your joints.
2. Flexibility exercises
Doing physical activities that promote flexibility keeps your joints limber and improves your range of motion. Yoga, pilates, and tai chi are all forms of exercise that focus on improving flexibility.
3. Low impact aerobic activity
Aerobic exercise that is low impact keeps your cardiovascular fitness levels high without putting additional stress on your joints. Consider activities such as swimming, walking, cycling, and the elliptical machine.
4. Strength training
Strength training, done using either weights or your own body weight, improves your joint stability and keeps surrounding muscles strong. Aim to weight train two to three days a week, taking breaks of at least a day between sessions.
5. Exercises that improve range of motion
Doing exercises that target your joint’s range of motion most days of the week helps keep your joints moving to their fullest capabilities. Examples of range of motion exercises include shoulder rolls and arm raises over your head.
Treating joint pain
If you have arthritis or experience other chronic or acute joint pain, Dr. Badday offers a number of outpatient and minimally invasive treatments based on the severity and source of your joint pain. Along with helping you develop a lifestyle that reduces joint pain, Dr. Badday can stop your joint pain through solutions such as injections, nerve or root blocks, radiofrequency treatment, spinal cord or nerve stimulation, and discography.
To get your joints back up to full health and keep joint pain away, contact the Pacific Pain & Regenerative Medicine office most convenient to you by calling or using our online booking tool to make an appointment for a telemedicine or in-office appointment.
